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I’m writing today to make a modest funding ask of our allies and our readers capable of financial contributions on behalf of our volunteers. What we’re looking to do is to raise enough funds for all of our volunteers, who are able, to fly to San Francisco this April and attend the sex::tech…

We get a lot of questions from users who wonder whether there is a certain way they should act or feel or look, if the way they are doing things is weird or normal, or if there is something wrong with them or how they feel or act or look. I’d say that that topic is in the top three of our most…

I don’t know about you, but the times I call myself things like stupid are times I feel really bad about myself, usually for doing something I don’t feel good about. Then I call myself something like that and I feel even worse, and have an even harder time making choices that are about being kind to…

The way you framed this is tricky, because our sexuality isn’t separate from our minds and can’t be separated from our minds, just like our bodies can’t be separated from our minds. In fact, our mind is where most of sexuality really is and is what drives it the most. We can’t say something is…

Earlier this week, in the context of another conversation, one of our users at Scarleteen mentioned that her feelings on abortion had changed to a negative when she learned that her mother’s pregnancy had been unplanned, and that her mother considered abortion. She said that upset her, because she really liked existing. She did say she was still pro-choice, but her sentiment bothered me all the same. Some of why it bothered me was political, and also about the work that I do and have done. But in thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that the ways it bothered me most were intensely personal. The truth is, I envy her. A lot. I envy she was able to have a discussion in which her mother made clear she had the right to choose and she chose to remain pregnant and parent her.

Before anything else, one very important thing for you to know is that if you’re underage, making and/or sending nude or sexually explicit pictures could be a felony for both of you. In the United States, those images of legal minors are considered child pornography, and his asking you for them…

A one-stop-shopping handbook on relationships, sexuality, and big sexy confidence for people of all genders, sizes, and sexual orientations who know that a fantastic love life doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the number on the bathroom scale

The co-editor of Yes Means Yes gives young women the tools to decipher the modern world’s confusing, hypersexualized, sometimes dangerous landscape so they can define their own sexual identity.

I absolutely agree with you: that is seriously not okay. I do not think you are overreacting. Not at all. I think you had a very appropriate reaction, and I’m very glad you had that reaction rather than thinking it was okay for anyone to do something like that to you. In fact, if you didn’t get far…

I would not, and cannot, give you advice on how to feel differently than you do, or on how to hide your feelings. Instead, I would only – and could only, in good conscience – advise you NOT continue to be intimate with this person again and ideally not to stay in a relationship with this person at…

If you haven’t been living under a rock the past few weeks, you’ll have noticed that there’s big media hoopla about one Julian Assange. Everyone seems to have an opinion and something to say about him, and between Swedish arrest warrants, Interpol searches, public defenses by people like Michael…

We talk about this a lot here at Scarleteen: virginity isn’t physical or anything that can be universally proven or disproven with body parts. It’s an intellectual concept, an idea, a belief, and perhaps most accurately, a word for identity some people use, usually to identify when they or others…

I thought someone who’d be perfect to answer your questions is one of my favorite young sexual health educators, the marvelous Joanna Dawson, MPH, Teen Health Educator at United Action for Youth. She had some great information and helps for you! Joanna said: To start, good on you and your partner…

yougivemefever’s question continued: My boyfriend was hesitant to try to please me in the first place because he’s inexperienced and gets frustrated. He gets upset he can’t reciprocate. I don’t expect him to just know what I like. I should be comfortable enough with my body to be able to show him…

I thought that your question was a great opportunity for some peer-to-peer education. So, I asked Arianna, an awesome Scarleteen reader your age who always seems to do a great job getting to the heart of things, if she’d help you out. She was happy to do so, and gave you some great advice, resources…

Because you don’t want to have any kind of sex or a given kind of sex now, in a given relationship, or don’t feel ready now or in this relationship does not mean you won’t ever. There are many, many kinds of sex – not just intercourse, and sex also includes masturbation, having sex by ourselves…

I understand why you’re feeling heartbroken. I’m so sorry this is how things have been going for you and that you’re hurting so much. I strongly doubt you were stupid, and I want to remind you that this isn’t something you did by yourself: both of you chose to add sex to your relationship, not just…

As it is on the road, being attentive to and giving clear signs and signals is a big deal between the sheets. If navigating consent feels complicated or confusing, here’s a guide to clear it up.

Anyone who knows me or who knows anything about me usually knows that my pre-teen and teen years were incredibly difficult. I dealt with neglect and abuse in my family, starting from about the time I was 10. I was sexually assaulted twice before I even became a teenager. I was queer. I was suicidal and was a self-injurer. I struggled to find safe shelter sometimes. Few people seemed to notice, even though after I gave up trying to use my words, I still used my eyes to try and tell them constantly. I’m 40 now, and in a whole lot of ways, I felt older at 16 than I feel now. Some days, I am truly gobsmacked that I survived at all, let alone with my heart and mind intact and rich. A lot of why I survived is about having gotten support.

There is a lot to unpack here, but I first want to make sure we’re on the same page with some basics, particularly since my sense is you don’t have an answer to this because you’re not asking yourself the right questions. You’re saying you can’t have an orgasm from sex, but want to. But you’re also…

How can you separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to sex educators, sex education services and online sexuality spaces for young people online? We walk you through it so you can be more sure that wherever you’re talking, you’re getting good information in a space that’s safe for you.

This is a guest post from alphafemme, part of the blog carnival to help raise awareness and support for Scarleteen. My mother reads Dear Abby religiously. She’s done it for as long as I can remember, always picking out the “Lifestyle” section of our local daily paper and turning to page B2. Some…

From what I tend to observe, when someone like you is worried about what you’ll say exerting sexual pressure, but is coming from the wonderful, thoughtful kind of place that you are, these worries are often displaced. In other words, I’d say it’s highly likely that with how you feel about this…

This is a guest entry from Dr. Ruth Neustifter – who we know here at Scarleteen as Dr. Ruthie – for the month-long blog carnival to help Support Scarleteen. Can we get your support? I remember it very clearly. I was a senior in high school and we were all noshing together in the lunch room when Darla, who was two years my junior, blurted out that she had seen her boyfriend naked and that they were planning to have sex soon. It would be her first time, although we thought he probably had more experience. ”I sure hope it gets smaller before it goes in, because my hole isn’t that big!” she declared and we all laughed together.

This is a guest entry from The Gaytheist Gospel Hour as part of the blog carnival to support Scarleteen. “In this life, things are much harder than in the afterworld/ In this life, you’re on your own!” —Prince High school is a laugh riot. It’s a jolly funhouse where the unpopular and the unusual are punished for their crimes against conformity with a topsy-turvy ridicule. Here, overweight boys have “due dates”, homely girls are proposed marriage by homecoming kings, underwear waistbands are wedgied into easy carrying handles for Special Ed students, and exchange students, (regardless of country of origin) are addressed in mock Chinese. In this swarming mosh pit of ha!rassment, powered by sweaty insecurity and raw, smelly fear, homophobia stands as the indisputable height of hilarity. At least that’s how I remember it.